Teenage entrepreneurs nurturing a space for mental well being
While developing a college project based around Chatbots and their expertise in providing relentless service, these two teenagers, Anshika Gupta and Almash Alam identified it’s potential as an intelligent Mental health care assistant.
EQlibria incorporates cutting edge AI technologies for an enriching customer experience and relentlessly researches in related fields. They are poised to re-engineer the Indian mental healthcare market to better align system-wide incentives and to shift the focus from reactive sick care to preventative healthcare.
Team EQlibria — (front, left to right) Sharvari Kumbhar, Almash Alam, Vedika Manelkar, and Anshika Gupta; (behind, left to right) Shubh Mehta, Tejas Shyam, and Priyanshu Jain
Based out of Mumbai, the company was founded by two teenage college students in their second year of engineering, and takes pride in having a 50:50 employee gender ratio. The increased presence of women as entrepreneurs has resulted in a shift in the demographics of business and the country’s economic prosperity. Women-owned businesses are playing an increasingly important role in society, encouraging others and creating more job possibilities around the country. From a team of two girls managing their bachelor’s degree and the startup simultaneously in 2020, they’ve now grown to 15 and sustained operations through bootstrapping. The initial version of the app was out on the play store around new year’s eve 2022 and has gained significant traction in the very first few weeks itself.
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
Anshika is an incoming graduate student at the New York University for Computer Engineering. She maintains a cosmopolitan outlook with a keen interest in entrepreneurship. She grew up at various culturally diverse locations which has imbibed a deep understanding and respect for diversity in her. Besides academics, she believes her art has taught her patience and perseverance.
Almash is a first-generation engineer, having a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. Along with being an entrepreneur she’s also working as a full time employee at LTI. Besides being a software engineer, she loves to discuss startups, business, entrepreneurship & socialpreneurship to build a community of individuals who love to build, network, and grow.
“When my friend lost her roommate to suicide, I wanted to be there for her, but the pandemic restrained me from doing so, physically. This and many such incidents globally led us to leverage ML/ AI and develop Theo — a free chatbot assistant for mental health warriors” says Anshika.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/india-mental-health-pandemic-digitization/
India has one of the highest prevalence of mental illnesses globally. National Mental Health Survey 2016 found that close to 14% of India’s population required active mental health interventions. The number of people in need of mental health guidance outcast the actual available mental health resources. Even if the solution is available, it has been observed to be luxurious for the common man. With rising unemployment and other post-pandemic issues, there is a need for affordable and efficient mental healthcare. This calls for more inclusive and efficient virtual options that are available interminably, are safe, and maintain our privacy. Currently, the available solutions cater to the global market offering services in English and other foreign languages which restrict usage in interior parts of India. The lack of promptness in getting help serves as one of the major factors for extreme steps being taken.
Identifying the need for such a solution catering to the native Indian demographic specifically, the young girls launched EQlibria — a mental health tech startup focusing on providing affordable mental health support to people through contextual, multilingual chatbots and patient support systems. Not only technical but also business and psychological expertise from Mr. Tejas Shyam, Dr. Jyoti Sangle, Mr. Eldrin Fernandes, and Ms. Tina Mali, reinforces the team’s vision to refine the provided solutions.
Today, EQlibria impacts over 2500 people every single day throughout multiple online platforms. Being affiliated to the Startup India initiative by the Government of India, this venture has been recognized by IIT Mandi, Xartup and the Entrepreneurship cell of St. Francis Institute of Technology. The global mental wellness market size was valued at $138.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $200 billion by 2027.
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Originally published at https://medium.com on July 25, 2022.
